Information that You Need to Know About Prior Art Search

A patent, in simple terms, is defined as the legal construct that will give a grant to the patent owners to uniquely practice or manufacture the invention in the approved nation for a certain period. Right now, the time limit is 20 years from the patent application filing date. In the USA, patents are granted for discoveries that are not only useful but also need to be non-obvious and novel in the prior art light. The non-obvious and novelty of the invention is dependent on the prior art search. The prior art refers to any data publicly available in any form to the patent application filing.

Definition of Prior Art

Searching for the prior art involves looking out for data in various publicly available resources to identify if your invention is already present in the market, previously detailed, or described in other references. If any discovery is present in the prior art reference, the patent application will get rejected as anticipated by the prior art. In other words, if there is any invention already published and matches your discovery with a date before your patent file application, the application is not novel and is thus ineligible for patent security. So it is always better to hire a professional company for a prior art search service so that you never miss out on anything and your patent will get approved on the first go.

The most obvious prior art form is the patents that are previously published and granted patent applications. But even without the patent application presence for filing, an existing product in the market never filed for a patent application is known as prior art. A technological concept that is almost 100 years old can also be prior art. An idea previously described but cannot operate due to the existing time technologies is also called prior art. The prior art sources include published patent applications, books, patents, products, and periodicals. However, the examiner of the USPTO office (the United States Patent and Trademark Office) uses the most common prior art of previous granted patent applications and patents.

Different types of Prior Art Search

Prior art search service by a reputed company considers the following four forms before filing a discovery for the patent application.

Novelty Search

Novelty search assists an inventor decides if the discovery is novel before the patent owner commits the resources essential for acquiring a patent and is done when the inventor files for the patent application.

Clearance Search

A clearance search is the search of the patents issued to verify if the process or the product is violating some else’s pending or existing patent.

Validity Search

A validity search is conducted after the issue of the patent, the primary purpose of which is to identify the prior art that the patent office might have ignored or overlooked. These might be useful for the competitors who are searching to content the granted patents validity.

Landscape search

A landscape search will offer you a high-level technological view and currently perform to understand the land lay when getting introduced to the new technical segment, including the latest trends in competition, activity filing, adjacent or white space technologies, and technology.

Significance of the Prior art Search Services

Prior art search is significant as it controls the capacity to gain rights over the IP or Intellectual Property over the invention. If the owner cannot obtain the required IP rights, the discovery might have a reduced value in the market. It is due to the inventor being incapable of preventing the competitors from entering the niche market or getting forced to purchase the licenses from the current right holders of the IP.

With no prior art search, the inventor will continue to perform in a data vacuum and cannot form an educated opinion on whether the owner might obtain an invention patent. Thus a Prior-Art Search Service is significant to:

> Decide if the invention is non-obvious and novel, compared to the prior public art
> Accounts for the prior art are closed before patent file application drafting. For instance, you might want to state the improvements or merits over the related prior art as this will assist in persuading the patent office that the discovery is new and unique
> Be always prepared for the invention discussion
> Search for the discovery that you might have accidentally infringed on their invention
> Save money through the present development detection
> Identify the latest research field publications and keep the updated progress in the record created by the others
> Acquire statistical analysis on the innovative organizations of the niche field
> Avoid submitting the patent applications with claims or that can get rejected
> Development of strong strategies for the patent claim before filing for the patent application. It will also reduce the extensive amendment chances
> Understanding of how your discovery will fit correctly into the technological field
> Search for the people who might infringe on your discovery someday
> Identify the strength of the invention
> Clarify the best partners with whom you can form a collaboration
> Access the patented invention strength
> Cancel an approved patent implemented against you by the new invalidating prior art > detection, not considered in the patent granting process.

Relation between Lawsuits and Prior Art Searches

If someone sues you based on an infringement lawsuit, then a prior art search can assist you in these circumstances. You can conduct yourself or hire a patent firm for the prior art search services to find out if your invention is infringed or not. It might also invalidate your patent before a trial or an action before the court. If their claim proves to be invalid, they will not have any ground for maintaining against you for the patent infringement.

Wrapping it up

In most cases, it is advised to the inventors to carry out a prior art search with attention to both the invention’s technical features and patentability legal factors. A patent application for the invention is not only a paper but also a legal document. So search well before making sure that your invention is the only thing present in the market.